What I Learned from Working at a Grocery Store

When I first moved to my apartment I was on a doctor-ordered rest time and wasn’t allowed to work. But after 3 months of that and with seizures under control, she gave me permission to go back to work. Now believe it or not, I had done my homework before I moved to town because I knew that whenever I would need a job, I wouldn’t be able to drive yet so I would need something close by. And it actually play a small part in picking this apartment. It is close to my church and close to a grocery store that was hiring. So I just had to trust God that when I needed the job, one would be available. And it was.

This particular store is pretty unique. It’s not a Walmart, Kroger, or Aldi. It’s an IGA, which are franchise stores actually. So they can have their own personality to some degree. It’s family owned and in a small town. Everybody knows everybody.

A lot of people have asked what my job is. And I laugh. Because my job is made up of all sorts of crazy things! In any given day I can go from being a cashier, to slicing deli meat, to baking bread or cookies, to grinding hamburger, to filling the dairy case, and so many other things. I don’t know how other stores work, but here, you fill in where you are needed and know what to do. You don’t get bored. 🙂

This is my last week working at the store. I’ve been there nine months and I would like to share with you some things I have learned along the way:

1. Power Outages have a whole new meaning when you work in the food industry. I used to think the power going out was fun and exciting but when you have to pull food quickly into coolers and worry about temperatures it turns into something else. After an outage, cooler temps have to be regulated for quite a while to make sure they are doing okay and nothing dropped too low. Customers have to be checked out quickly so you can shut the registers down. And then you work with flashlights, waiting for it to come back. It makes life interesting, but not the kind of thing you want to do often.
2. High schoolers are…ummm…fun? to work with. I remember when I was hired as a camp counselor telling my supervisor that I would work with any age group but I REALLY did not like working with teens. Bahahaha! Came back to bite me, didn’t it? Actually, I’ve learned a lot. Just like every other age group, you can’t write off all teens as dramatic and lazy (sorry!), you have to take each one individually. Some are just as hardworking (if not more) as adults I know.
3. Bologna is still my least favorite meat to slice. While I feel much better about it, I’m still not a huge fan. However, I have learned that it is NOT the grossest meat in the deli like I thought. Souse takes first place there. *Shudder* (just look it up…)
4. I think there is some misconception in the world as to what constitutes a “Real Job.” Most of the world believes that if your job is not your dream, then what are you doing with your life? And until you have a job with full benefits, a 401K, and life insurance, your aren’t an adult. And the sad thing is, believers have taken on the attitude as well. When I tell people I’m switching jobs, I have been getting several responses similar to, “Oh, it will be so nice to have like a real job and everything.” I’m a little confused. I worked 45 hours last week. Is that not a “real job?” Here is what I fully believe: If you have a job you enjoy and that pays your bills, you can glorify God through that. Your job doesn’t make you, it isn’t who you are. In fact, it may be that your job is something you go to in order to be ABLE to fulfill what you would rather be doing! For instance, you may want to be able to visit shut ins, but God has not given that as your “job.” Your job is what you do during the day to support yourself so that in your free time, you can share God’s Word with those in a nursing home! Does that make sense? So please, no more of this nonsense about real jobs and dream jobs. Because my dream job can be done no matter where I go for work during the day. It doesn’t mean I’m not doing my dream job. 🙂 (Sorry, that probably should have been it’s own post.)
5. Which leads into my next thing. Evangelism. I have learned SO much about evangelism from working at the store. How to make it practical, how to bring the Lord into everyday conversations with unbelievers. How to be patient and kind when I’m worn down and tired at 9pm and just want to go home. Things I never would have learned in the controlled environment of my last job or at church.

There are so many other things I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for patient co-workers and supervisors when my head clouded up. I’m thankful for the small town that embraced me. Small towns seriously are the best! Most of all, I’m thankful for the Lord leading me to a job that helped grow my faith so much! Everything written here is because of Him!

 

(Except bologna, that’s straight from Satan. 🙂 )

 

I had a Dream

This may be one of the most personal, open, and honest posts I have ever written and it was hard to write. But I was telling this story to someone last week and it really encouraged them so I thought I would share it here. I should be writing a medical update since I was at Cleveland Clinic on Friday but that will have to wait. 🙂

A while back I was on this medication that caused me to have nightmares. Now before this, I had really not had very many dreams. At all. I rarely ever dreamed, good or bad. But something about this medicine suddenly cause an influx in dreams. They were only bad dreams and they were very, very vivid. The kind that you wake up from in a panic or wake up crying. Sometimes they were so vivid I would wake up and had already jumped halfway out of bed before I realized what was happening. Every night I would climb into bed and pray that I would have no dreams that night.

One night, I had a dream. I dreamed that I was pregnant and gave birth to this tiny little baby. It was so small that I could hold it in my hands only. This is really hard for me to write and some of you are going to think I am crazy, but did you know you can love something in a dream? I don’t know how that’s possible, but I loved that tiny little human in my dream. Shortly after it was born, some soldiers broke into the hospital where I was which was a big room with a bunch of people in it. I was going to spare the details but I think I’m going to tell the complete story. One of the soldiers grabbed the baby from my hands and killed it by stomping on it with his boot. And I woke up crying.

These are the kinds of dreams I mean. I don’t read into dreams or try to interpret them; I just take them as dreams. For days after I would think of that dream and still cry because of the love I felt for that baby. How can you love something in a dream? That’s ridiculous, right? The months went by and the pain of that dream slowly faded until I didn’t think about it anymore. I came off of that medicine, the dreams stopped, and I praised the Lord!

Fast forward to two weeks ago. Suddenly, that dream came to my mind in the middle of the day. And not once, but 4 times that day. And the next day. And the next. And I found myself thinking about it a lot. I prayed and asked God why it was coming to my mind and that he would fill my thoughts with things that were pure and lovely. I would recite Phil. 4:8 every time it came into my head.

One day I was talking with Natalie, just exasperated that I couldn’t figure out why that dream kept coming to mind. She asked if I had been thinking about babies or pregnancy or anything like that. And it suddenly hit me. Like a light bulb moment. I had had one thought a week or so earlier that if I started to date someone, at sometime I was going to have to tell him that I can’t be pregnant.

You see, you can’t be pregnant while on seizure medicine because it almost always causes severe birth defects in the baby. It is still possible to have epilepsy and have babies, you just have to come off your medication and go through a process with your doctor. And while I wasn’t anticipating being pregnant anytime soon, I realized that I hadn’t fully given that desire over to the Lord yet.

It’s odd how God uses stuff in our lives sometimes. How a dream from months before was used to show me an area that I needed to pray about and be at peace with. And the dream has vanished. I haven’t thought about it once since that day. But I am thankful that God used it to bring me to the place where I am now. I don’t plan to be pregnant anytime soon but I am confident in God’s will in that area and will cross that bridge when it arrives and I wasn’t able to say that honestly before.